Being Clean
by Ariadne Bassarid
Summary: Showering is not a private experience with a millenia old spirit attached to you. [oneshot, BakuraxRyou, mature content]


**Being Clean**

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_Written for someone who was kind enough to give me some links to manga. Probably more pornographic than either of us expected - sorry about that. In posting it I'm working on the basis that nothing in here is worse than, say, American Pie, and that's a 16+ restriction which corresponds with the M rating. Ie, you've been fairly warned, and this is fairly posted. Yay boy love!_

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"What on earth are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"It doesn't seem like nothing."

"I said it was nothing, so shut up."

"Aren't we bitchy today?"

Ryou sighed, staring at the reflection of his pale torso in a patch of the mirror which he had wiped clean of condensation. The truth was, very little could shut up the voice in his head. Maybe a coma. But even then, it was doubtful. Spirits had a way of… Getting in the way. He lifted his gaze to his face, and his reflection blinked its large, brown eyes. He felt, not for the first time, that if he stared into them for long enough perhaps he'd see a glimpse of the personality which belonged to the voice.

Or maybe everything but his eyes would simply cease to exist and he'd know what it was like not to have a body of his own.

"I'm just looking in the mirror, Yami, what's so strange about that?"

"I had a feeling."

"Oh my god, there is a first time for everything!"

There was a slight shimmer through the air beside him. Experience had taught Ryou that most people were unaware of this brief ripple, though it never failed to send a sharp frisson up his spine. Likewise, normal people could not see his doppelganger, who appeared at his side with a smirk.

Ryou knew the smirk was there, even though he remained staring into the mirror. There was no spirit in the mirror. The large gold ring was on the basin counter, waiting. No spirit in there either. For the time being.

"I didn't say it was my feeling. I felt one of yours."

"Maybe it was indigestion," Ryou suggested helpfully.

"Let me guess: you're being pissy because it's a bad time of the month."

"Can't I be melancholy?" Ryou demanded of himself, suddenly, interrogating his reflection. "What's wrong with that - if I want to stand in front of the mirror after I've had a shower, thinking about things?"

"There's water running down the walls. You should open a window."

"My god, now you care what happens to the wallpaper? If it gets mouldy?" Ryou was forced to spare a glance to the side, finally, at the spirit of the puzzle. It was a mistake – he was immediately trapped in the look, unable to take his eyes off the other.

He was unexpectedly close. His eyes, with some strange, sharper intelligence than Ryou's own soft pair, were staring at Ryou from under long, black lashes. The spirit of the ring had clothed himself in long black pants and a black turtleneck – a stark contrast to all Ryou's white, naked skin, only covered by a soft, white towel almost the same colour. Ryou had the urge to reach out and see if the woollen turtleneck was as delicate as it looked, if the weave was really that silky.

He resisted, because he knew it would be. He had given up trying to imagine the spirit – the other Bakura – away from him. No matter how many times he told himself that he wasn't there, didn't have a real body, couldn't have clothes… It never worked. He could always feel the spirit's breath on his neck, sense the air shifting beside him. Eventually, he'd given up trying to deny Bakura these little deceptions, and with that relenting they had grown persistently stronger.

The other Bakura leaned forward, slightly. Ryou remained still, as the spirit brushed back Ryou's damp, flat white hair with one hand, and placed his soft, pale pink lips beside Ryou's ear.

"Perhaps you prefer it steamy," he murmured.

Ryou swallowed, and looked back to the mirror. There was only one of him reflected. Three of him in the room.

"It's winter. I'll get a chill if I let in the cold air."

"But Ryou…" The spirit said softly, stepping backwards, taking in all of Ryou with one up-down look. "You're already shivering."

Ryou shook his head.

"Or are you trembling?" For some reason, the spirit's eyes hardened. The small, half-smile left his lips. "It was a strange feeling, Ryou."

"I was just thinking, Yami, that's all." Ryou's voice came out softer than he'd expected.

"It wasn't a melancholy feeling."

"I - "

"What would I call it?"

"Fuck off!" Ryou breathed to the mirror, trying not to let the other Bakura's dark scrutiny reduce him to a quiet, simpering boy as it so often did.

"Wrong term."

"…What?" Ryou looked back at him.

The spirit reclaimed that step he'd taken backwards, moving forward against Ryou again. This time his lips brushed his ear; a soft, tickling sensation. "I'd say this feeling you had, it was almost… Narcissistic."

Bakura's cold fingers grazed the top of Ryou's towel, and Ryou jumped backwards, clutching it. The spirit followed him, causing Ryou to involuntarily take another step. He gasped, as the cold glass door of the shower cubicle was suddenly pressed against his bare back. The shower behind him started to life with a loud hiss, and he tried to leap forward again in surprise, but the spirit stood in his way. Without thinking, Ryou put out one hand to keep himself from falling on the almost-corporeal figure in front of him.

His hand pressed against the spirit's chest. The black turtleneck was too invitingly soft.

The spirit was standing over him, using his extra few inches of height to intimidate Ryou, push him slowly back against the cold shower stall. Water was beating against the other side of it in a noisy, impatient rush.

"Narcissistic… And more lonely than melancholy, really." The spirit murmured into the shorter boy's hair.

Ryou felt a lump in his throat.

"Poor, lonely little Ryou," the spirit said, its tone biting, not sympathetic at all. "What are we going to do with you?"

Ryou closed his eyes, almost to pray for some way out of the compromising position, but before he could form that thought the spirit gave a disconcerting, harsh laugh that seemed to wrap around his head, his neck, his shoulders, fly down his back.

Steam was filling the room again.

"Yami - "

Suddenly Ryou felt the towel at his waist pulled away, a cool hand rush down his abdomen. The spirit's dark linen pants brushed against his legs, his naked thighs.

"Stop!" Ryou gasped.

Bakura's nose nuzzled back the hair from Ryou's neck. His teeth bit the earlobe.

"No," Bakura almost growled, his voice harsh, "I don't think I will."

Ryou pushed his back even harder against the shower stall, as though he were trying to escape backwards through the glass - but he thwarted himself as his hand suddenly convulsed against the other's chest and grabbed the black woollen top, pulling its fabric, and the broad chest inside it, closer to himself.

"You can't!" He didn't let go of the turtleneck.

Bakura's other hand travelled down to join the first. They worked quickly, deftly. He bit Ryou's neck. "Why is that, tell me?"

"You aren't – you're not - " Ryou struggled to speak, to breathe, his body quickly reacting to the one pressed up against it. "You're not real!"

"Funny. I _feel_ real. How do you feel, Ryou?"

Ryou bit back a groan. He wanted to push back the spirit, but he didn't want to.

"You were thinking about doing it yourself, anyway."

"Stay out of my head!" Ryou managed, in a rush of air.

"I'm not in your head. I'm in your pants. Well, if you were wearing any."

Ryou closed his eyes, but that only made the sensations stronger.

"Look at me," the spirit said, harshly, and Ryou was suddenly staring at the other's face – his own face – and in the background, the mirror behind the spirit showing nothing but himself, helpless against the wall. He could see the hard look in the other Bakura's eyes, the soft parting of his mouth, even the sharp outline of a few teeth. He tried to avoid the other's brown, dark, evil eyes – they had to be evil, didn't they? And he could see himself in the background, his reflection, struggling against the shower through a veil of steam, breathing heavily.

"I said look at _me_!"

Ryou did. Bakura's eyes seemed to suck him in, and he couldn't help it any longer – he cried out softly, shuddered, and then sagged, relying on the other Bakura, pressed so close to him, pressing him against the glass, to keep him from sliding to the floor.

"Maybe now you won't be in such a whiney mood." The spirit stared at him for a moment, then vanished.

Ryou half fell, half lowered himself to the floor. He leaned against the shower cubicle, his eyes searching the room, wondering if the other Bakura was really gone, really back behind his own eyes. The water was still running behind him with a steady rat-tat-tat-tat. He needed it again. Spirits had a way of getting in the way.

Even of things as simple as being clean. Ryou did not feel clean.

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_Right. Hope you enjoyed. Thanks for reading, babies, and please point out the typos I missed. :) _


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